martial arts demonstration in school prompts parents to notify police

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Teacher Back At Work After Investigation

By Monica Keen, Staff Writer

March 2, 2005

What began as a demonstration of martial arts by a teacher in a seventh-grade geography class at Muldrow School last week led to a student allegedly blacking out, prompting the student’s parents to report the incident to police.

Muldrow Police Chief Tony Lewis said the alleged incident occurred at about 10 a.m. Feb. 24 during a seventh-grade geography class. Lewis said the teacher was talking to the class about Japan and the Orient, along with the different cultural aspects of the people who live there. He said the teacher then began talking about different forms of martial arts practiced in Japan. Lewis said the teacher called on one of his students who was sitting in the front row, and was going to show the class a specific type of hold, or martial arts move, on the student.

Lewis said the student, who was a male, was given instructions to tap the teacher if the hold was too tight or uncomfortable. When the teacher began applying the hold to the student’s neck, the student didn’t tap the teacher. The student allegedly blacked out for about five seconds as a result of the hold, Lewis said. Lewis said although the teacher said he never felt the child go limp, when he let the student out of the hold, the student appeared to be disoriented. He said the teacher became concerned at that point and sat down with the student to check on him. Lewis said the teacher didn’t think there were any injuries or lasting effects on the child, and later that day the teacher saw the student playing basketball and thought everything was OK.

“No malice was intended, according to the teacher,” Lewis said. Lewis said the teacher said the martial arts move was simply done as a demonstration for the class. Lewis said when the child got home, he told his parents about the incident, who became concerned and brought the child to the police department. He said the child’s neck was photographed, and there appeared to be scratches on it. Lewis added that according to the teacher, the scratches were already there, but the parents claim the scratches were a result of the demonstrated hold. Lewis said the police department will present their findings to the district attorney’s office after their investigation is complete, which is expected to be in 10 to 14 days.

He said it is the district attorney’s decision as to what, if any, charges are filed against the teacher. Lewis said the department has never had any problems with the teacher, and the teacher was well liked. He noted that the teacher was not arrested and no charges have been filed against the teacher. Muldrow School Superintendent Roger Sharp confirmed the incident took place and occurred while the teacher was describing the uniqueness of different cultures - the Japanese culture and martial arts. Sharp said in the past, the teacher has brought in different foods of other countries to try to keep his class interested in the subject. He added that the teacher goes “above and beyond in order to enrich the classroom.”

Sharp said the teacher told the principal about the incident the same day that it had occurred, and Sharp became aware of it that night. “It wasn’t confrontational,” Sharp noted. “It was a demonstration…that I wish hadn’t happened.” Sharp said the teacher was a long-term teacher with the school and had been with the school for 16 years. He said the teacher had an excellent record. During the investigation into the matter by the school, the teacher was suspended, but Sharp said Tuesday that the teacher would be back in school Wednesday. Sharp added that while the teacher’s judgment was not the best in this incident, the teacher had no intent to injure the child.

Sharp noted that he had received calls from parents in support of the teacher. “Hopefully it will work out…and it will,” Sharp said.

http://www.sequoyahcountytimes.com/articles/2005/03/02/news/5teacher.txt

2

ah yes, the PC age rears it’s ugly head again.

3

Obviously the little bastard thought he was too tough to tap.

4

The little shit has parents that are aching to get a settlement…nice way to pay for Johnny’s college tuition. What the hell are they teaching their kid?

Meanwhile, a teacher who actually gave a shit about trying to teach something gets hammered because Johnny was a moron.

5

That was poor judgement on the teacher’s part. Especially since this was with 7th graders (13 year olds) and not high school seniors or something. I don’t think any sort of suspension (aside from the mandatory one while doing the investigation) is in order; I’d imagine that he’ll use better judgement in the future while trying to get students interested in the material anyway.

In any case, if a lawsuit comes out of this, it will be nothing more than a greedy grab for money at the expense of the school district and its students by proxy. It’s the worst kind of frivolous lawsuit.

6

Typical of the litigious society we live in today.

However, this teacher should’ve really thought twice about demonstrating a technique on one of his students. Though no harm was intended, it could be perceived by the parents and/or other students in the class as malicious.

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Typical modern parents who think children are made of glass and more precious than all the stars in heaven. I fucking hate soccer moms.

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Everybody’s parents thought they were made of glass when they were kids, yet we all surivived. Remember red-rover? A kid at my school dislocated his shoulder playing that game. Don’t see parents threatening to sue schools for reccess games (I don’t think).

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Ha ha P-Dub… I actually broke my arm playing Red Rover!

Good times…

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Teachers should keep their hands off students.

I have kids, I don’t want some teacher using them as a ma demo in class, that’s bs, and dangerous.

That said, this sounds silly. No harm done. But it might pay for Stanford…

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I’d be scared shitless if some teacher pulled some sort of choke on my kid in class. Theres 10000 other different moves/techniques he could’ve chosen…While I may sound paranoid, keep in mind this is a teacher, whom your child sees everyday, who (as we know of at this point) has no martial arts teaching qualifications, choking your child.

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Teachers probably should not be choking kids, as a rule. However, I commend the teacher’s zeal and originality. He obviously won’t do this again, and lesson learned. I wrestle with preschoolers every Saturday, and there is plenty of rough stuff to be had there, and my approach is that kids are gonna get hurt no matter what you do. That’s what kids do.

Personally, I would counsel my little retard to tap next time and shake the teacher’s hand. But, to each their own.

13

All of the playground equipment was actually dangerous, back in grade school.

As for this incident, the teacher should never have touched the kid. Very bad judgement on his part.

Worse, it’s probably one of his "pet"students.

`~/

14

Whatever. It doesn’t matter if the teacher should or shouldn’t have done this – it’s done. What is important is that the kid is fine, the parents are idiots looking to cash in, and the teacher is probably gonna get screwed for trying to do something interesting.

And I must note - HE PLAYED BASKETBALL afterwards. Not hurt. Just a little woozy. Like any kid training in wrestling might be.

And as for the ‘Not my kid, no way!’ arguement, well, again, whatever.

Normally, I roast teachers for their socialist, politicized viewpoints being passed down to my kids, or doing NOTHING until they can pension out. This guy tried something different. It wasn’t the best judgement, but no one was hurt by it. And he actually gives a damn if his students learn something.

So yeah, let’s come down on him. Because, you know, there’s a plethora of other REALLY dedicated teachers out there to take his place.

In my life, I had three teachers that I recall as being dedicated, and different. Three. Out of probably sixty, including University profs. Most were horrible. I’m guessing my experience was about average.

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The teacher should have shown better judgement, he should have osoto gari’d the little bastard through the floor.

And when I say parents today think kids are made of glass I am referring to this non contact sport, bike helmet crazed, soccer laden, child seat until they are 12, plastic bubble society that todays parents are fostering. This insistence that all games should have no score so no feelings get hurt and you cannot yell at my child no matter how stupid the little shit is being attitude that has somehow become the fad. Dope them with ritalin and anti depressants, wrap them in styrofoam, fix every plug and cabinet in the house to be childproof and have them arressted for acting like a normal kid. That’s the parents of today. And the scary part is how these kids will act when they are adults. The most over coddled over protected generation of children in human history.

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Perhaps, but that was a school setting and not a dojo. It’s a bit unreasonable to lay the blame at the feet of a child rather than the authority figure present, you know, the adult that was using extremely poor judgment at the time. The school should’ve fired his ass for being an idiot.

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That had nothing to do with political correctness.

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I never said that the teacher should be allowed to demonstrate this technique on his student; I don’t think that under any situation a teacher should be touching his student.

My point was mainly, agreeing with TylerDurden, that children are to overprotected.

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To you and to me, a basic naked choke is nothing. But most of us have a martial arts background and have been naked choked many times. Imagine for a moment that you know nothing of hand to hand combat, though. You hear that a teacher strangled a kid, and the kid staggered and felt bad afterwards. You’d be like, “What the hell?”

If I were in the teacher’s position, I never would have done that. My mom has taught in the public schools for many years, and it seems obvious to me that this kind of demonstration is only likely to get you in trouble.

As for keeping score and athletic events and things like that, that’s a whole other can of worms. However, if the quality of physical education is decreasing, it’s overly simplistic to blame it on fear of hurting kids’ feelings. I would blame lack of funding and facilities first for lack of a serious physical education program in a given public school.

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Poor parenting, a lot of kids I run into are narcissistic and rude. It appears to be getting worse and worse with every succeeding generation. In general, military kids are better behaved than their civilian counterparts it’s a positive trickle-down effect of military discipline.